


Grieving Day

by butteredflame



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon Compliant, Episode Tag, Episode: s13e23 Let the Good Times Roll, Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-07
Updated: 2018-09-07
Packaged: 2019-07-07 13:39:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15909336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butteredflame/pseuds/butteredflame
Summary: During the first days of Dean’s possession and disappearance, Cas tries to grieve alone. Luckily, his company at the Bunker won’t let him.__13x23 coda. Pre-13x06 parallels.Inspired bythisgifset.





	Grieving Day

During the first days after Michael possessed Dean, Castiel wanted to keep to himself _. I love Dean._ He’d known this, lived by this truth for years, now. _But why burden the others with my messy feelings?_  And so, he was frequently drawn to the quiet corners of the Bunker, where he would sit in shock and pray for Dean’s soul. He even went quiet for a while—for so long that when he noticed, he realized he was in mourning. He was grieving Dean—and it ran deep inside of him, resounding like an ache. On the fifth morning since Dean said _Yes_ , Castiel finds himself hovering outside of Dean’s door. He had been reluctant to share this with anyone, afraid it would hurt that much more. But as he stands there, afraid to let himself in, he realizes he doesn’t want to grieve alone anymore. 

And so, on day five, he seeks Dean out in the people who know him, also.  

____

Mary is in the kitchen, peeling through a mess of breakfast menus. She quirks her brow when he enters and considers him. Listening to the coffee maker whir, Castiel shuffles to the table then takes a seat. She slides half of the pile to him, and he opens the one at the top. 

“You couldn’t possibly need these many menus for breakfast,” he teases. "To my understanding, they don’t vary so much.” 

“It’s for Dean.” 

Castiel’s heart stutters at his name. Mary is usually not-quite-short with the angel, but he knows what she means, so he nods deeply. Moments pass as they flit through menus. Then the coffee maker dings _,_ indicating completion. She tells him to leave it, then mutters about an interesting pick. The kitchen table is mostly hushed until Castiel speaks again.

“I remember you saying that when he was child, he had a healthy appetite.” 

Mary smiles, chagrined. “He was so upset, wasn’t he?”

Castiel nods fondly. “He can be sensitive.”

“Gosh, my baby. He was always so precious. But I didn’t really understand it when I was younger. Now that I’m older...I realize that Dean has always had a special connection...to things that are strong and warm.” She chuckles warmly. “That doesn’t describe the time of the year he was born so…it must be something else. He has always been what we wanted. And I’m not surprised to find who he is now.” 

" _Is_.” 

The word slips out before Castiel can stop it. It’s warm and hopeful, with something scarred underneath. Castiel meets Mary’s eyes and she smiles kindly, nods.

“Out there in Apocalypse World, I ran into Michael often. I watched Jack fail to kill him, twice. I’ve seen him take down people, people I knew. But in that world, Dean and Sam didn’t exist.” She takes his hand. “Castiel, I know Michael seems like the biggest bad ever, but… You need to have a little more faith in Dean.” 

“You know that Dean is his perfect vessel, Mary.” 

“Yes. That may be my point.” 

He frowns doubtfully, certain she’s missing details on angel possession. “Anyway… It’s not Dean I don’t have faith in. It’s _myself_.”  

He has more to say— _I lost him, so how can I hope to save him?_ —but he can’t get the words out. Luckily, he’s said enough.

“Oh, Cas.” 

She squeezes his hand. Though he is surprised, he is also warmed by her gesture. He squeezes back. 

“But…I hear what you’re saying, Mary.”

“I hope you do. We can get Dean back. It’s not impossible.” 

Castiel nods uncertainly. The first forty-eight hours, he sat around the Bunker, trying to figure out a way to get Dean back in control of himself. Each way he diced it, Michael would overpower him and stamp him out until Dean’s consciousness was irretrievable. Certainly, Mary was correct that getting Dean back wasn’t impossible.  _But how can I go on, in the meantime?_ Even now, his heart is breaking. Castiel moves shakily to his feet, intending to back out of grieving with the others. Before he can leave, however, Mary tells him to fetch Sam and Jack for breakfast. 

“I found the one!” Her smile is bright for the morning. A true, small victory. “I’m looking at western omelettes and Chef Rory's hashbrowns, double-stuffed with mushroom and bacon. Dean would love it. Don’t you think?” 

His fingers curl around the lip of the chair. For the first time in days, Castiel smiles. 

 

 

 

After breakfast, Castiel walks through the Bunker aimlessly until his feet take him to the library. He’s not surprised to find Sam in the frigid room, hunched over a pile of angel lore. But finding he doesn’t want to be alone, he helps Sam carry a dozen books into the warmer war room. They spread them out on the global map table and Sam returns to work. Something important has been eating at Castiel, though, and now that his mind can function between waves of grief, he has to ask. 

"Sam…how could you say there was no other way?” 

Sam sighs and looks up. “There's no point in rehashing the past, Cas.”

“Past? This happened only  _days_ ago.” 

“Cas, don’t do this to yourself.” 

"There was another way, Sam! There had to have been another way to kill Lucifer!"

"There was no other way,” Sam demands. "Dean did what he had to do to stop Lucifer and keep Jack safe. He should have known Michael would have backed out of their deal but—everything was moving so fast. I don’t blame him at all."

“I don’t mean Dean,” Castiel insists, “I mean _me_. Why aren’t you angry at me? Why don’t you blame me?” 

"Cas?! Why would I?!" Sam looks affronted. 

“If I was there, I could have done something!"

“ _It is not your fault._ After you died, I don’t imagine that Dean could have—" Sam stops himself, then points to Castiel accusingly. "And before you ask, he didn’t have to tell me that he told you to stay behind. And he didn’t have to tell me why.” 

Castiel grows heavy. Sam raises his brows.

“Nothing to say, Cas? Really?” 

“I’m not—” Of course, he is stunned to see Sam so confrontational. But really, the problem is that Castiel’s throat is dry and his heart is aching. “I can’t really—”

Sam sighs. “I know. It’s hard without Dean.” Then he’s spluttering again. “You’re so worried it was your fault, that _I’m_ worried you’re gonna run off again. I remember that before everything went down, you were concerned about the static on angel radio. Don’t even think about running off to Heaven to solve whatever problem they have.” 

“Sam—! I am grieving Dean. I can’t even think about Heaven—I’m not even there yet.” 

“Then don’t go there again.” 

_Don’t get dead again._

Castiel hears Dean's voice from another place and time, hears the scarred tone underneath and frowns. Castiel didn’t think he’d needed to ask for clarification at the time, that Dean meant everything he'd said and hadn’t said. But recalling how Dean had pleaded with him to stay behind when things went south with Lucifer, Castiel feels he must ask, “When I was dead, in the Empty…how did Dean take it?” 

Sam looks at him sternly, like he’s certain Castiel doesn’t want to know. Castiel frowns, because who is Sam to choose for him? His silence lasts too long. The angel snaps again.

“ _Sam_.”  

“Fine. Dean _lived_ here—in the Bunker, in the States, on planet earth. Every day he scraped himself together and he went on, knowing you would never come back. So, you had better stay here, Cas. Make sure you’re here for when he comes back.”  

Sam is cut short when Dean’s voice flares again.

_I was here. Where were you?_

And Castiel just collapses. He folds into himself and holds his palms to his forehead, trying to figure out how to go on, how to live without Dean and the way he loves him. The search for wholeness is endless. His grace flares at the edges, helpless. He’d expected Sam to feel uncomfortable with his despair, to even leave the room, but Sam doesn’t. He leaves his seat and kneels beside Castiel, palm heavy and comforting on the angel’s neck. After bowing his head, together they sit vigil. 

When Sam speaks again, his voice is quiet. 

“Michael may be wearing his body, but my brother is here with us, Cas.” 

Castiel shifts, meets his eyes. 

“He is  _still_ here." 

 

 

 

These days, since Michael walked off to wreak global havoc using Dean’s body, Castiel’s nerves feel like livewire. He can feel every brush of the Bunker’s air circulation and at once he can feel nothing but his pulse. He remembers feeling this way years ago, when he had just fallen. (How long those lonely months had been, feeling so large in such a fragile body without his father, his family, or Dean!) However, now he feels differently. Dean had been here. (With him.) And Sam was correct, that Dean is _still_ here. Castiel senses a whisper in the air that triggers his memories of Dean; a faint tingle of life in his chest that also feels like his father’s love. It is a ringing, high and long, not quite like angel radio… (Which is still static. At noon, he’d checked.) Castiel follows the impression along the tile walls of the Bunker and into the living room, where he finds Jack curled on the couch. The television is turned off. When Jack senses him, he closes the Star Wars paperback in his hands; sits placidly as Castiel enters, eyes innocent and skeptical.

“So, you and Sam are fighting now?"

Castiel sighs. “It’s not like that.” 

“Then help me figure it out, Castiel.”

Once again, he is humbled by how much Jack is like his mother, Kelly, in both in insight and tenacity. Certain he will never get used to it, or stop being grateful for it, Castiel clasps his hands behind his back and searches for inner strength. Tries to draw it up from his heels; tries to gather it from the Heavenly realm. He comes up short both ways, and the centerfold ache returns, collecting like stagnant water. _Why not move it?_ He gets an idea.

“Why don’t you take a walk with me, Jack?”

“Yeah? Sure!”

“When we get back, I’ll help make lunch.”

“If you really want to, sure. Let’s go!”

After so many years fighting to avoid an apocalypse, long months living a human life as a fallen angel, and many more endless moments unsure of his father, goals and values, Castiel has gained the certainty that there is something better on earth. _Longing, the unrequited, even grief._ Castiel has chosen to feel all of this. Just as he has finally chosen to live here and to stay,  knowing that Dean loves him. He has even chosen to feel the Kansas wind at the height of spring; senses how Dean would glow sun-warm in the nurturing breeze, and smiles to himself.

They have taken one of many paths around the well-hidden Men of Letters bunker. Jack is a solid presence at his flank. The air is clean and the path crunches below their feet. He turns his smile on Jack, proud that for such a young nephilim, he had already chosen to be human, too.

“It’s good to see you smile, Castiel.”

At first, he doesn’t know what to say. “Thank you, Jack.”

Jack smiles.

“Can you tell me what’s wrong?” Castiel asks. “What do you want to understand?”

Jack takes a moment to gather his thoughts.

“I missed you when you were gone. Even though Dean didn’t like me at first, and he yelled a lot, I could tell that he missed you, too.” He frowns. “I was so sad for him.”

“Jack, I’m sure that is…a gross overestimation of the situation.” 

“No, Castiel. It’s the truth,” he says earnestly. “But I don’t know why. I’m trying to understand why everything feels as wrong as when my father was alive. Why Michael possessed Dean and won’t let him go. Why I’m not just sad for me, but also for you.”

The wind picks up and tosses Jack’s hair around, but he pays no mind to it. Castiel wants to fix it, wants to get rid of his frown, wants to revoke everything that has made his novel gaze so fraught. Jack stares and Castiel searches for a way. There are clinical studies that say babies sense the change when there is discord in the house. Which is why the saying goes, _Happy house, happy child… Now that I’m lost without him,_ it continues, _I’ve no idea how to pick up the pieces._ Castiel closes his eyes and breathes. The ache resounds with eternal depth. He will never be the same.

“In short, Michael was the first archangel. Dean is the one vessel that can bear his power permanently. Dean said yes, but…we all wanted to get you back from Lucifer, any way we could. I don’t regret it and neither does Dean.”

Jack lays a palm on his shoulder, shocked. “Castiel, I…I’m so sorry! I don’t know why I didn’t put it together.”  

Castiel squints. “What do you mean?”

“It’s just that… He was as sad as you are now.”

 _Oh._ How many times had he put Dean through this? This terrible mourning? This fragility of heartbreak? He thinks about his conversations today and he wonders why it took losing Dean for good, to finally believe his longing was returned. If Dean had ever doubted the depth of Castiel’s feelings…how his heart must have ached, whether Castiel was here or not. _Don’t get dead again._ He’d told him in other ways, too. _Stay at the Bunker. I won’t lose you like that, again._ And even far, far before then. Years before then. So many years…

Jack surprises the edges of Castiel’s awareness, as he throws his arms around him and hugs him tight. Castiel returns the gesture absently, one hand patting the young man’s arm in gratitude.

“We’ll get him back, Castiel.”

Castiel nods. Moments later, the sun disappears behind the overcast clouds and they decide to return to the Bunker. Castiel thinks about it all. _Dean loves me_. The thought takes his breath away like the thousand times Dean, himself, had. _Dean loves me._ Castiel glances at the sky; senses once again that Dean had been here, with him. 

 _I love Dean_. It is the truth, and Castiel remembers each time it was proven. He will always love Dean, whether he remembers him or not. Whether he is at his darkest or Dean is at his darkest. Whether he’s a human or an angel. Whether he or Dean believe the other has longed so deeply. Whether they were meant to collide or not. Castiel will always love Dean.

The truth is so profound, Castiel finds himself walking to the rhythm of his heartache.

Somewhere between the baseball field and the Bunker, the ringing returns and he greets it with innate familiarity. His feet take him to the kitchen, where Mary and Sam are already whipping up lunch. Jack says he isn’t hungry but decides to eat half a burger. Castiel watches their ritual and feels the importance of his role. Sam tries to smile at him, as if to make up for earlier, but the gesture rolls off Castiel’s back because Sam was right. Castiel holds his eyes, tells him so, and Sam smiles more genuinely, with relief. When lunch is over, Castiel offers to wash the dishes, which nearly pulls them all into a fight, but Castiel insists.

“You’ve all helped me today, more than you know. I would like to return the favor.”

_For Dean._

The words don’t come out, but they hear it, nonetheless. Sam and Mary blush. Jack squints. Castiel returns to the dishes, and one by one, they retreat to research more into the case Sam thought he might have found. When Castiel turns off the faucet, the ringing returns.

Wings lifted at half-mast, feet quickened, Castiel follows the sound through the Bunker.

 

 

 

 

First, he goes to his room. But it doesn’t feel right. He visits his and Dean’s cave on the second lower level. Even that doesn’t feel right. He ends up in front of Dean’s bedroom again. Once he opens the door, he can see books, papers and a laptop filed neatly but clothes spilling off a desk chair. He hesitates. But, recalling the mixtape Dean had made for him and how Castiel had plucked it out of his hand like a rose, he steps into the room. At first this, too, feels wrong: to be in here without express permission. But Castiel can feel Dean’s presence in the room. It makes him brave and he finds he doesn’t hurt so much anymore.

He crosses to the desk and curls his fingers around the lip of Dean’s desk chair; stands and basks in Dean’s presence. He goes to the bed and places his palm on Dean’s pillow; picks it up and crushes the lingering scent of _honey-sweat-gunpowder_ to his nose. Suddenly, the ringing seems to swell inside of him exultantly. Castiel smiles to himself.

Castiel had tried to cope with the depth of his heartbreak; had tried to avoid the inevitability of Dean’s memory. But their closeness had always nurtured him, and so he’d been seeking Dean out all day, in the places that would heal his pain… Because nothing had really changed.  

(Dean had been here, with him, inside of him.)

 _Uriel was right,_ he thinks bravely _. Naomi was right. Even the ancient cosmic being in the Empty was right._ Although they were wrong to convince Castiel that Dean didn’t love him back, they saw everything his heart knew to be true. That it had never belonged to him; that Dean _was_ his heart; that even in his most final death, Dean _is_ his heart.

The truth knocks Castiel off his feet and onto Dean’s bed, small creaks of the footboard absorbed by memory foam.  Closing his eyes to the swell in his chest, Castiel rests his hand there. He feels the unyielding strength of Dean inside of him, forever blooming just under his ribs. He takes a wet, deep breath.

He nods.

_Dean._

____

  

Somewhere far away—on another continent, in a controlled body, in the depths of his mind—Dean wakes up.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I took a break from the show for a few years. But S13 pulled me back in because Dabb is doing an okay job deciding if he wants the show to come full circle. *laughs* Hoping he pulls through, I wrote this fic. 
> 
> Thanks for reading.


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